Today NDP leader Jack Layton died peacefully at his home, surrounded by family and loved ones. His party issued this statement: “We deeply regret to inform you that The Honourable Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, passed away at 4:45 a.m. today, Monday, Aug. 22.” A few days ago Jack had […]

Sending thoughts and prayers out to Canada’s NDP leader, 61-year-old Jack Layton, who is now taking a leave of absence to receive treatment for the new cancer his doctor’s found in him last week. “I will beat this new cancer and I will be back …” he said today. Melanie Hack Author of Who Killed […]

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry LaPrise, the man who wrote “The Hokey Pokey”, died peacefully at age 93.   The most traumatic part for his family was getting him […]

“Have somebody rip your heart out and hold it in front of your face and just have them squeeze the life out of it. That’s the only way I can express that kind of a pain. Like…it’s torturous,” thirty-eight-year-old Tammy Marquardt said today when asked about how it felt to be wrongly convicted of murdering […]

Eighty-three-year-old Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist who supported physician-assisted suicide and “right-to-die” legislation and put assisted suicide on the world’s medical ethics stage, died today at Beaumont Hospital in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. He had been hospitalized for pneumonia and a kidney-related ailment. Through the 1990s he was charged with murder numerous […]

Ken, thanks for passing on the following philosophy of Charles Schulz—the creator of the ‘Peanuts’ comic strip. (You don’t have to actually answer the questions. Just ponder on them. Just read straight through, and you’ll get the point.) Name the five wealthiest people in the world. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners. Name the last five […]

Robert Latimer, the Saskatchewan wheat farmer, was recently granted a full parole beginning today: Monday, December 6, 2010. He was the Canadian convicted of second-degree murder for what he says was the “mercy killing” (to end pain and suffering) of his severely disabled twelve-year-old, forty-pound daughter, Tracey, in 1993. He was convicted in 2001. (Latimer […]

Imagine delivering your victim impact statement to confessed murderer Colonel Russell Williams and challenging him to lift his bowed head and look at you while you speak…and have him comply. And as you deliver your statement directly to him, what would you feel?: Shock? Outrage? Hate…knowing no punishment could make your shattered life better? Despair? […]

As Martha Hickman explains: “One bright summer afternoon, while our family was on vacation in the Colorado Mountains, my daughter, who by now had grown into a beautiful young woman of almost seventeen, fell from a horse and died.” In the following excerpt from Martha’s writings, Martha talks about herself in the third person as […]

You have to admire Canadian Olympic figure skater Joannie Rochette. Last Sunday her mother, Therese Rochette, died of a heart attack in Vancouver at age 55. But not being a quitter, Joannie competed (two days later) in the first of two events—the women’s short program—and earned the third best score. But the free skate competition, […]